Hello there reader. I’m glad you took some time out of your hectic day to take a trip into a magical world with me…the sensational, incredibly stimulating, and extraordinarily frustrating world of politics.
Politics runs everything about your life whether you think it does or not. It is everywhere and there’s no escaping it. Politics determines how much money you get to help pay for college. It determines how much you get paid at your job. It runs every single thing in your life.
I love discussing politics. I eat, breathe and bleed politics. I can’t get enough of it. I also have a very strong sense of what’s right in this country and what needs to change. I’m not afraid to voice my opinion. I’ve been called a socialist, a feminazi, an anti-religious faggot and many other things. If you go along with the conservative right’s definition of these terms, they’re completely accurate. I’m a “socialist” because I believe in universal healthcare, that no one should be denied medical treatment because of their inability to pay for it. I’m a “feminazi” because I believe in a woman’s right to choose and because I think that women should be paid the same that their male colleagues are paid. Lastly, I’m an anti-religious faggot because I don’t think that anyone’s religion should be used as an excuse to deny me basic civil rights because of who I am. My name is Austin Jacob Kieler and I’m a socialist feminazi anti-religious faggot and I’m damn proud of it.
A lot of people think that American Politics is a two sided battle where both sides have valid opinions. I’m here to tell you that that is absolute bullshit. There are two sides to American Politics, that much is true. But the premise that BOTH sides have valid and respectable opinions is laughable.
The Republican Party has become a party of extremists who are on a crusade to fundamentally and permanently alter how this great country works. They’re in the pockets of the wealthiest people in the world and are tirelessly working to make those people richer and richer. They don’t want to make college more affordable for you and I, because in order to do that they would have to pay their fair share of taxes that everyone else in this country is expected to pay. They no longer protect your constitutional right to freedom of speech unless they agree with what you’re saying. They want to bring religion into public schools and government buildings with no regard to the separation of church and state that our forefathers so bravely fought for. They’ve witnessed a classroom full of 1st graders brutally murdered by gun violence and still won’t even support a ban on assault rifles. This is what the Republican Party has become: a sad excuse for a political party (if you ask me.)
So welcome to my column. Every other week we will examine various national, state and local issues that affect all of us, expose the “Grand Old Party” for what they’ve become and learn what we need to do to stop them from getting what they want.